While still waiting for the flash file I went to get help with for my recently submitted Across The Universe calendar, I decided to use the free time I had to illustrate an idea I had in mind for a few years now. Just waiting for a "well, don't know what else to draw" moment like now. Trying to bring something a little new to the space and science fiction scene, I went for two gas giant planets either stuck in the most well balanced orbital dance ever, or more likely, moments away from collision. Something you just don't see in the genre. Not sure if this is what the event looks like, but it would be a pretty cool sight to see, and a terrifying one to be caught up in!

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That's a goo question. I imagined a lot of fire and mess but eventually just having a larger gas giant form at the end of it. Guess it depends on how big they are, since there's still quite a generous amount of size-variation within the gas giant category

I am sure these things happen and your illustration points out the dynamics of such an entanglement would bring. Worlds being destroyed, the moon literally being torn apart, a most unpleasant ending for anything that should inhabit the worlds or that poor moon. With gravity tides pulling and cutting and the other forces at work this perhaps is a most realistic view we have until total obliteration of both planets. Kind of makes you wonder perhaps something akin--though on a much smaller scale may have happened between Mars and Jupiter. Now also finding these planets that zip around their star, something like this is going on, surely a planet that orbits its sun in 8 hours must be undergoing tremendous stress as well. I see no reason why this isn't possible with everything that is happening in this universe this just seems to be one more thing that perhaps someday we will catch a glimpse of. Until then your picture tells the story in a very real fashion, I see no reason to doubt what is happening here is really what happens.

It's true they have found things that no artist would have ever thought of in the past, It's interesting when I come across old artwork depicting things that "could" happen in the universe but weren't certain at the time, but now have been either proven as fact or debunked as impossible. But either way the artwork is often very interesting as it shows what people were thinking of at a time when those things weren't entirely proven or not. Maybe in years to come, decades even - this here might be one of those artworks that shows "hey, someone knew this could happen years ago" or "wow, look at the crazy ideas people had back then" either way, if it ends up being the topic of conversation for a bunch of astronomers at any point in time that would be pretty cool

Hot Jupiter's, Mini Neptune's, Super Earths, and Pluto with a Moon system. All these only came about in the last few years. Look at any Science book from the 1950's-Jupiter, 11 or 12 moons, Saturn, 9 moons and the diameter of Pluto anywhere from Earth size to Moon sized. Venus was suppose to have an atmosphere of Carbon Dioxide and even Formaldehyde. I am sure what we have discovered now will be revised over and over again as we are able to fine tune our instruments. I believe there are even more unusual things out there that we have yet to discover or see because we ourselves have yet to formulate the existence of such things.

I think Science will always be changing, established facts or what we think are established facts will give way to new truths which will be in turn be replaced by new discoveries. Science will always be evolving. We tend to fit the science around our own comfort zones failing to realize that science doesn't exist for our own pleasure and solving abilities alone. There are some cold hard truths but for the most part anything new we tend to idealize it (for now) into our own comfort zone and fail to realize that maybe we are just looking at a minor point in the whole scheme of things.

This is an amazing piece of art. It's really creative and it's something I would never picture. If I were to ever draw a planetary collision it would probably look like a butt with stuff flying out of the crack. I would love to buy this but I'm a broke 17-year-old without a job so... yeah.